Starships will never exist. Except in dreams.

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[@zeusengine]

Public understanding of General Relativity misses what the theory says about the nature of reality. General Relativity states at a philosophical level that there is no absolute space. Fundamentally, this is not about a limit on the speed that we travel through space. It is that we don't actually travel through "space", at least not in an absolute sense. Instead, we travel through spacetime with the"speed" of light defining its fundamental structure. Simply put, Alpha Centauri, or any other location, represents a location in both space AND time. Therefore, when we speek of traveling faster than light, we are talking about traveling to a location in spacetime that doesn't exist. This is a fundamentally existential assertion and not a limitation on our engineering. In other words, there is no clever way to travel to somewhere that doesn't exist.

[@DamienWalter]

Yes. I wanted to explore this in the video essay but we're still at the stage of public understanding where asserting this will be treated as heresy. Good comment, thank you.

[@marianotorrespico2975]

--- THANK YOU . . . for the facts. Now, what matters most is finding proper actors for the fantasy movies.

[@evo1ov3]

speak*

[@VanRijn-fd7wn]

But it’s important to remember it is possible to travel to other stars without going faster than the speed of light, so don’t get hung up on FTL.

[@JezebelIsHongry]

thank you one of the most profound videos to watch is from Fermilab and it explains why we can’t travel faster then light one can not skip ahead of causality you sit in a room. you sit in your frame and you travel through spacetime at the speed of light look at you most of you are sitting or laying there, static in your local frame and the speed of the flow of time is the speed of light

[@carlo2384]

According to Greek mythology, the Phoenix lived for 500 to 1461 years. It was a radiant and solitary bird, with only one Phoenix living at a time. At the end of its life, the Phoenix would build a nest made from aromatic wood. It would then set the nest on fire and become consumed by the flames. From the ashes, a new Phoenix would emerge. In short, a mythic bird that dies and is reborn about every thousand years or, in other words, a Millennium Falcon.

[@zeromotivation1817]

Thank you, for the connection I had never thought to make. It brings a smile to my minds eye.

[@PoochieCollins]

Now I know what the inspiration was for the Phoenix ultimate in WarCraft 3 had such a quirky dynamic: would live for a short while after being summoned, then would turn into an egg that'd fall to the ground, then if it wasn't destroyed for another short while would hatch to a full Phoenix again. Thanks for the anecdote on mythological history :-)

[@achimdemus-holzhaeuser1233]

Han Solo flying a Flamingo .. now that is a Picture I needed :)

[@dukecraig2402]

And Han shot first.

[@billkasperdotcom]

At the risk of upsetting Trek vs. Wars fans, the Phoenix was the first Earth ship to reach Warp 1, the speed of light, piloted by Zephram Cochrain and a couple folks from the Enterprise D. It's a time travel thing, you wouldn't understand.

[@QuicksilverSG]

The most unfathomable aspect of interstellar space is not its sheer size, but its desolate emptiness. To the crew of a cramped spaceship, a journey to even the closest stars would be an experience of total isolation. After leaving the solar system behind, there would be no sense of motion, no sense of time passing, nothing but a visibly fixed star field outside. The only practical way for human beings to endure such an interminable void would be to construct a completely self-contained habitat capable of sustaining multiple generations of human progeny, a world unto itself whose path through the cosmos can be steered between the stars.

[@anthonystulpin2623]

This was exactly the concept of Arthur C Clarke's "Rendezvous With Rama" trilogy.

[@NoidoDev]

So what? The ship is not empty, and the cyberspace isn't.

[@mikolajtrzeciecki1188]

There are "rogue planets" on the way.

[@fpvx3922]

So, like 600 years ago, when crossing the ocean was exactly like that?

[@greggstrasser5791]

Ya, so you accept this defeatist Pharasitic concept & doom your grandchildren to a life of imprisonment. All because you can’t imagine Einstein was, not only a bad husband who stole his wife’s work, but he was wrong.

[@danieltempas6062]

I don't remember who said it (Asimov?): "Just because some things that were once thought impossible became possible does not mean that all things that are thought impossible will become possible."

[@alphaomega1089]

If you can think it, it is possible. Question: will you do it or not? It may require great intellect and effort. Not something humans can easily do. We still think aliens built the pyramids...lol. AI can help us with intellectual thought. Effort and will is up to us. Moon by end of century. The will was there. Nothing is beyond us. AE was wrong. Space and time are not one as electricity and magnetism aren't one.

[@jonaseggen2230]

From Hogfather by Terry Pratchett. The conversation between Susan and her grandfather, Death. Death’s dialogue is in caps. ‘HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.’ ‘Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little -’ ‘YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.’ ‘So we can believe the big ones?’ ‘YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.’ ‘TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET - Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME…SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.’ ‘Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what’s the point -’ ‘MY POINT EXACTLY.’ ‘YOU NEED TO BELIEVE IN THINGS THAT AREN’T TRUE. HOW ELSE CAN THEY BECOME?’

[@reecechadwick8504]

Yeah definitely and I agree but I still think this will be possible one day.

[@obsidianjane4413]

But in an infinite Universe, all things are possible.

[@jonaseggen2230]

@@obsidianjane4413 No. But everything possible will happen an infinite number of times

[@wanjanechtangroeger]

I love the starsghips of the Imperium of Mankind (Warhammer 40k). They are beautiful huge cathedrals in space, true works of art and science, glorious monuments to the machine god, humanity and the God Emperor - yet they are also brutal tools of oppression and extermination, many of them being casually equipped with planet killer weopons. They feature luxurious quarters for the higher-ups that put any royal castle to shame but on the other hand thousands of press-ganged humans toil below deck under horrific circumstances for the rest of their short and miserable lives. And they are just regarded as some sort of fuel that has to be resupplied from time to time. These startships represent the best and the worst of humanity at the same time.

[@the-craig]

Mostly the worst of humanity, though. 40k is a satire of a lot of militaristic Science Fiction and it's (internally) unacknowledged dystopian consequences

[@danielclawson2099]

The luxury vs. near slavery sounds philosophically similar to Titanic-era ocean liners.

[@webx135]

So I didn't learn until just this year that an "Imperial Star Destroyer" isn't a "Destroyer of stars". But is the space equivalent of a naval destroyer. Growing up, I was always confused by this. "What is so special about a battle station that is a planet destroyer? They have STAR destroyers flying around everywhere!"

[@lexprontera8325]

On top of that, they're actually the equivalent of a battleship or carrier - because they're used as fleet capital ships - with "star destroyer" being just a fittingly menacing name.

[@lexprontera8325]

@@piotrd.4850 Yes, exactly, while these spaceships carry large caliber firepower and smaller armed craft. Apparently the SW term "star destroyer" is just descriptive of their power.

[@antonberkbigler5759]

Everyone compares the star destroyer to battleships and carriers, but you gotta remember that this is a universe where things like the super star destroyer exist. A Venator is 12 kilometers or so, and the imperial star destroyer is only 1.6 kilometers. Sure, in terms of design and usage they resemble battleships and carriers, but within it’s own continuity it’s just a destroyer.

[@247Barcaro]

​@@antonberkbigler5759 Nope, the Venator is 1.2 km long not 12

[@antonberkbigler5759]

@@247Barcaro If you’re right, then it just means that I used the wrong name for the SSD. The SSD from episodes 5 and 6. The one that is obviously much larger than the imperial star destroyer. The imperial star destroyer that is 1,600 meters or so long, aka 1.6 kilometers. Which is longer than your proposed 1.2 kilometers.

[@mr_yoru5834]

I will leave it up to the scientists and engineers who continue to push the research and technology to determine what is possible in the end, not youtubers.

[@NoidoDev]

Well, it's fair to speculate based on the knowledge of the rules of the universe.

[@markzambelli]

@@NoidoDev You're right... but... when those KZbinrs get empirical fact's wrong in their videos it doesn't lend a great deal of weight to their argument. If the title of this video was 'The _Fictional_ Starships as Portrayed by Hollywood et al, Will Never Exist' then I'd generally agree, but not because a video essay outlining some of those shows/novels says so.

[@fpvx3922]

@@NoidoDev Is it fair? What do you think people thought the world would be like just 50 years ago?

[@greggstrasser5791]

@@fpvx3922 50 years ago they thought we’d be on Mars already. I was born the year we went to the moon. Einstein holds us back.

[@voss0749]

@@greggstrasser5791 We could have landed on mars 30 years ago. It was not the technology that prevents us. It was the cost back then. We keep putting back the mars missions further and further back because noone wants to pay for it.

[@frogisis]

I suspect the big secret to practical interstellar travel may not be an exotic FTL drive but just post-human immortality and a lot of patience.

[@lukemcniven4131]

@ozzymandius666 that just sounds like another problem to fix, not a deal breaker

[@jeffreystewart9809]

Maybe if we can get to the point of being able to transfer a consciousness into a computer and back into a body, we could spend that time in a virtual state and then just clone and grow new physical bodies upon arrival, or just upload into robots.

[@frogisis]

@@jeffreystewart9809 Personally I suspect interstellar travel soon evolves everyone who does it enough into fully spaceborne machine entities who don't need to leave themselves vulnerable to anything like suspended animation or life support. Though in practice it might not seem that different from what you described since you'd probably spend most of a voyage either in a trance or "daydreaming" in a VR-like imagination, and then explore & interact at the destination by fabricating whatever avatars you pleased.

[@frogisis]

@ozzymandius666 Exactly, that's why I specifically mentioned post-human immortality instead of suspended animation lol Properly-outfitted star travellers may no longer even have biological parts at all. It's understandable people would find this kind of future vision alienating and be a little squeamish about it, but I feel like if you stop to think about it it's only natural that moving up to a galactic-scale environment of vacuum, radiation, and extreme timescales would mandate you change yourself as well and not just keep using the same kind of body & brain originally developed for like gathering berries in a single valley on one warm little planet.

[@evalramman7502]

Very good point.

[@Asankeket]

I'm not quite sure how to take your titular statement. Those cool starships we see in the stories, that make interstellar travel casual and make it possible to have a cohesive interstellar society, yes, those are unlikely to exist for the foreseeable future, if ever, even though they have a role in our dreams in spite of that. Meanwhile, I still think that human beings will reach other stars some day, simply because it's physically possible. Likely not before we have an interplanetary society within our own system, at least in form of a significant permanent industrial presence on the Moon, since the technologies facilitating that would be required for the vast effort an interstellar expedition would take. Also, not faster than at 5-10% of lightspeed, but I think it will be done if we don't regress as a society, culturally and technologically. Which is, unfortunately, a distinct possibility.

[@DamienWalter]

It seems credible, because it's so often represented. But it's no more or less a realistic possibility than portals to other dimensions. At such a degree of speculation anything is possible.

[@Asankeket]

@@DamienWalter I suppose they might've said the same about Johannes Kepler when he proposed to build 'ships suitable for the winds of the heavens' in his commentary on Galilei's Nuncius Siderius in 1610, or when Cyrano de Bergerac wrote 'Les États et Empires de la Lune', arguably an early SF work, some years later. There was certainly a lot of far-flung dreaming and not a lot of realism in all that at the time, yet here we are, 400 years later and humans have actually been on the moon. To me it seems that the step from the present-day technology to STL starflight is conceptually smaller than that from Kepler's spaceships to the rockets of today. Portals to other dimensions are a completely different thing, since, as opposed to the stars, we don't even know these dimensions exist. Both ideas may play similar roles in SF writing, but while futurism may overlap with SF, it is not the same.

[@ronjon7942]

⁠Agreed. We see ships in The Expanse traveling between Earth and Saturn; we also see out of scale solar system models. Often. Neither takes into account how impossibly far away Saturn really is - JUPITER is mind boggling far away, Saturn almost doubles that distance! We also often use the Cassini spacecraft as an indicator we’ve conquered the distance, forgetting it took 7 years for the probe to arrive at Saturn, as well ignoring that its size and mass are trivial compared against the dimensions required by a spacecraft able to carry a large crew, possibly passengers, AND be capable of performing commercial operations - all at significant profit. Simply having a base on The Moon will hardly be sufficient for the impossible journey to a random star system - random not in the sense of distance, but in commercial and civilization sustaining viability. Colonies won’t be sufficient either - full fledged, civilization sustaining societies which have their own governments, economies, and self sustaining industrial and agricultural sectors will be required, well before any government or corporation will speculatively fund such a massive, and likely generational, undertaking. Solar system settlement on such an enormous scale, separated by even more enormous distances, will be on the order of a thousand, likely thousands, of years. Humanity will have fits and starts of regressions, certainly. But from what I see of humanity, I have much faith in us as a species - in fact, I have so much faith in humanity branching outward into the solar system over timeframes of thousands of years, I really don’t consider it faith at all. I take it for granted humanity will survive, until external circumstances dictate otherwise. Until then, humans will keep on doing what humans do: explore, take part in commerce, make laws and governments, war, expand, exploit resources…. My Faith in God is what gives me a certainty of faith for humanity, but that’s just me. Others who believe otherwise will take part in the journey of humankind - maybe even more; I don’t know, belief being a uniquely individual trait of humanity. At any rate, as it pertains to expansion, settlement, and civilization, I believe the solar system is it, with the possible extension towards the exploration and exploitation of the Oort Cloud - which in itself is impossibly huge. Voyager I is about 120 Astronomical Units away, having taken almost 30 years to traverse this distance. The Oort Cloud STARTS ten times further - 1,000 AU - disappearing into interstellar space a hundred times its start - 100,000 AU - which is then only 10% the way to our nearest star system. This will be no small feat, by the way, and definitely something to be proud of for our species to accomplish. As far as speculation goes, sure, anything can be possible…in the Art of Science Fiction. Perfectly fine with me. I love not much more than a complex space opera storyline, which is the best FTL time machine humanity will experience. And only.

[@DamienWalter]

@@Alexander_Kale We're going to find you a short course in the meaning of the word "certain".

[@DamienWalter]

@@Alexander_Kale + basic logic, before you start ranting about Kubrick directing the moon landing

[@intothevoid2046]

Lost of text without actual point or thread. I was hoping for a little more in depth information, not some recap of movies and literature. Perhaps the title mislead me. At least I know now how to get an indestructible ring, if I was inclined to waste my money on something...

[@ANTIStraussian]

Do you think humans will fly off to the nearest stars? It doesn't seem likely

[@lordifan32]

@@ANTIStraussian followers of this channel seem to be Stuck in their apebrain

[@henrykujawa4427]

In the published novel "20,000 Leagues", there is NO mention whatsoever of Nemo's nationality. Verne removed it from the book due to an argument with his publisher. Nemo was intended to be "Count Andre Dakkar", a POLISH prince who was betrayed by the Russians in a real-life incident, and Verne was always more interested in geography & history than science. But France & Russia were allies at the time, and Russia was a big part of their buying audience, so making the Russians villains was considered "politically incorrect". The idea that Nemo was Indian came from "The Mysterious Island", a book that originally had NO connection whatsoever with "20,000 Leagues". Again, Verne's publisher complained it was dull and "needed something extra". In sheer frustration, he added Nemo AFTER-THE FACT. This caused serious continuity problems, as the dates the 2 books take place make it appear both books happened AT THE SAME TIME. When I learned all this, I decided I preferred Nemo as Polish. The 1929 MGM film "THE MYSTERIOS ISLAND", which is not in any way an adaptation of the novel of that name, is instead a prequel to "20,000 Leagues". It takes place in the fictional country of "Hetvia", and depicts the Royals, the Democrats and the CRIMINAL GANGSTERS who over-ran the country. Someone at MGM must have known about what got cut out of the Verne's "20,000 Leagues", because the film is a THINLY-disgused depiction of then-recent Russian history, and how the Democratic revolution over-threw the Czars, but before they could solidify their victory, the BOLSHEVIKS overthrew the Democratics. CRIMINALS were running Russia for decades after that, people who were NEVER "Marxists" or true "Communists". It was all a colossal CON-JOB foisted on the Russian people. The 1929 film may not have been an adaptation of any Verne book, but it was very much in the style of his writing. So, pardon me, but I really hate when people insist Nemo was INDIAN. Hell, in Disney's "20,000 LEAGUES", he was BRITISH, and in Harryhausen's MYSTERIOUS ISLAND... actor Herbert Lom was CZECH.

[@ABW941]

Hm, didnt Nemo mention he was indian himself, when he saved the life of the indian diver? I have to read that book again and find out if recent changes were made.

[@longiusaescius2537]

Yep

[@chedelirio6984]

Eh, if Verne made a decision to make Nemo Indian for the sake of a storyline, then so be it, it was his book. And after it became public domain casting directors can choose whatever they will.

[@AleksanderHryniewiecki]

​​@@ABW941nope, he only said that this diver is a member an oppressed nation, same like Nemo. Only mentions of Nemo being Indian come from Mysterious Island, in 20000 leagues Verne hinted at his original idea by having Nemo hang a portrait of Kościuszko in his room.

[@hideousruin]

I've read Das Capital and TCM and most positive spin I can put. on Communism is it's really meant to provide an easy route to totalitarianism. Because nothing about the system makes a lick of sense and it seems impossible for anyone but a child to think the system as described could work On every page Marx & Engels seem to prove they never shed a single drop of sweat performing labor their entire lives. And then you have things like the benevolent dictator who will supposedly just give up all power the moment the workers utopia is established.

[@phoenixmotorsport647]

The ONLY thing that makes something "impossible" is just the fact that we havent worked it out yet - thats all

[@ronjon7942]

Heh, and physics. And distances and time.

[@phoenixmotorsport647]

@@ronjon7942 So the human race has a 100% full understanding of physics, or is it just how we understand it now? My statement still stands and it is up to you to prove it wrong. Just because we dont know or understand it doesn't make it impossible. If that was the case we would still believe that travelling over 30mph would kill us

[@WayneBraack]

The human race in my belief has a less than 1/10 of 1% understanding of how the universe actually works. We keep finding out how wrong we are. We've been working off the Big bang for decades and now we've decided that well that probably didn't happen. Yes someday we will understand and we will conquer the thing. The Star Trek universe will come. Just not for several hundred years.​@@phoenixmotorsport647

[@rikk319]

@@phoenixmotorsport647 You're taking the opposite and equally unrealistic tack here. People who say give up and don't even try--they're cynical. You however, are acting like anything is possible, just given enough time. That's not true. I don't need to know 100% about physics to know that if I drive my car into a brick wall, I'll die, or that if I dive too deep for too long, I'll suffocate. Regardless of inventing underwater breathing equipment, lungs can't pull oxygen out of water, only gills can.

[@Machiavelli2pc]

@@phoenixmotorsport647Absolutely.

[@AStuart-yo2xu]

I really like the spaceships from Octavia Butler's Xenogensis. They're grown, they're alive and they can be communicated with by touch. But I suppose that's even more farfetched. Commenting for that Eternus ring! Cheers Damien. Keep making videos. These are fantastic and my reading list is growing exponentially :)

[@CFWhitman]

Technically, according to the story, Serenity in _Firefly_ is not a starship, as it does not travel between stars. It travels between planets and moons of a much larger solar system than the one Earth is in. That system was reached by at least one large generational ship and FTL travel does not exist in the _Firefly_ universe. The various planets and moons have been terraformed to support life, and life native to Earth has been transplanted to them. Also, in the _Firefly_ universe no life has been discovered that did not originate on Earth, at least so far. There are plenty of practical problems with the story in _Firefly,_ but they decided not to use the common science fiction tropes of FTL travel and extra-terrestrial life.

[@redpillcommando]

Dear Walter. I understand that you want us to believe you are an authority on science fiction, but you neglected to mention Robert A. Heinlein's "Orphans of the Sky". This book may or may not be the first mention of a generation ship but it predates Mr. Aldiss's novel by more than a decade. As to your assertion that starships are impossible, I'll just leave this here: "If an elderly but distinguished scientist says that something is possible, he is almost certainly right; but if he says that it is impossible, he is very probably wrong." - Arthur C. Clarke.

[@DamienWalter]

"Just because some impossible things became possible, doesn't mean that all impossible things will become possible" Isaac Asimov

[@redpillcommando]

@@DamienWalter Touché. However, if I ever get to Alpha Centauri, I will send you a post card.🤩 BTW - I thank you for the mention of "Non-stop". I did not know about that story. It is now on my Kendle and is my very next book to read.

[@willemvandeursen3105]

@@redpillcommando Yes, Orphans of the Sky was not the first scifi story about a so-called Generation Ship, but it was the first one where the concept was fleshed out to the full. Not Heinlein's best novel (I always hoped he would re-write it), but as a boy it made a huge impact on me; I found it immensely dramatic and tragic. That it is highly misogynic I realized only decades later. 🥴 But Orphans is the reason I never finished Brian Aldiss's Non-Stop....

[@inzyniertv9305]

​@@DamienWalter boo fucking hoo. GTFO with that hopeless bullshit, take that black pill of yours and shovr it up your ass

[@ANTIStraussian]

​@@redpillcommandospace will be explored with robots. Sorry but the cost is a lot easier to budget.

[@mayfly552]

Another shoutiout: treeships from Hyperion. "a single, massive living tree harvested from the island of Hokkaido on God's Grove, which is then made spaceworthy through heavy use of containment fields generated by ergs." Two of these ships are known from the novels Yggdrasill and Sequoia Sempervirens

[@Tannhauser62]

It's a shame to see E.E. 'Doc' Smith omitted from this chronology, as his 'Skylark of Space', begun in 1916, was influential in establishing the idea of travel beyond the solar system. And I think you can draw a direct line from his Lensman series to the space opera and massive scale starships seen in Star Wars.

[@boatingman11]

Absolutely, and some of the best science fiction in the first half of the last century.

[@49525Bob]

@@boatingman11 Agreed, I was screaming "LENSMAN" at my monitor, but Damien couldn't hear me.

[@KevinSterns]

You can SUBJECTIVELY exceed lightspeed. As you approach the speed of light, time slows for you. For example, you could traverse 1 lightyear in 6 months... according to your wrist watch. Just ignore that pesky clock back home that says 1+ year elapsed.

[@lucofparis4819]

You're on the right track, the only thing you've missed here is that on a relativistic starship, time is OBJECTIVELY slowing down relative to Earth time, _not_ subjectively so. On the contrary, to an onboard observer time would pass at the normal rate. Case in point, although satellites comparatively have extremely tiny velocities, engineers are already forced to make tiny adjustments to account for time dilation for your GPS to work in the first place. Relativity really is a thing, not a trick of the mind.

[@dukeon]

The corollary to this is the startling realization that light (EMR) doesn’t experience time at all. It arrives everywhere instantly from “its” point of view (if it had one - and who’s to say it doesn’t…?). In fact, the very concepts of space and time, or spacetime if you want to be clever, don’t have any meaning to something traveling at the speed of light if general relativity is correct. It’s just more thing that’s impossible (or very difficult) to understand. You can do the math but conceptually it’s akin to understanding higher dimensions or quantum tunneling. Or a monster surviving in Loch Ness since the last ice age 😂

[@lucofparis4819]

@@dukeon Yes, but also no, as _c_ isn't just 'the speed of light', it's the speed of light _in a perfect vacuum._ Besides, it's less the speed of light per se than it is the speed of massless particles. For example, a photon emitted from the center of a star will definitely experience some modicum of time.

[@SnakebitSTI]

Case in point, sometimes supernovae are detected first by neutrinos then by photons. The neutrinos have mass and are therefore slower than the photons in a vacuum. However, the neutrinos pass straight through the originating star, while the photons are slowed by it. The photons travel faster through space, but the neutrinos get a head start. Intuition often betrays you when looking at physics. You kind of have to either look at (and thoroughly understand) the math or else accept the explanations of people who do (i.e. physicists). It was controversial around the end of the 19th and start of the 20th century, but time and again it has been proven that you have to trust the math over your gut. Well, experimentally validated math that is. Just because someone can write equations doesn't mean they reveal truths about the universe.

[@adamwu4565]

I would argue that a generation ship traveling at 2% the speed of light, powered by a laser sail or an Orion nuclear pulse engine, on a 250 year journey to Proxima Centauri, would still count as a starship.

[@DamienWalter]

0.2% if you're lucky

[@m808bscorpionmbt3]

​@@DamienWalter but still a starship

[@DamienWalter]

@@m808bscorpionmbt3 Watch the video essay.

[@ANTIStraussian]

How do you prevent a small rock from destroying the ship? Sci fi shields?

[@adamwu4565]

@@ANTIStraussian The easiest technological way to get to 2% light speed is with a nuclear pulse propulsion engine. At 2% the speed of light the impact of a small rock would be equivalent to a small nuke. Since a nuclear pulse propulsion system relies on detonating small nukes continuously at the rear of the ship, and absorbing the shock wave with a heavy pusher plate, you can shield the ship from small rocks by installing a second pusher plate at the front. The second easiest way to get to 2% light speed and above is with a laser sail highway. In this setup, small rocks and other debris ahead of the ship would be automatically cleared by the laser that pushes the ship. Dust grains would be vaporized and small rocks would be pushed aside. Any laser powerful enough to actually move the starship would be powerful enough to shift any small rocks by enough to miss the ship, before the ship got to them, since the laser travels at light speed, and the ship just a small fraction of light speed. The technological capability to protect the ship from collisions at these speeds comes automatically with the technological capability to accelerate to these speeds.

[@norbertrottenari4516]

guess he didnt want to get angry lawyer letters cause he didnt mention the massive gothic floating cathederals of WH40K

[@true_xander]

Our layers has sent you the papers already.

[@aaronrashott3514]

Maybe he's just not that deep in nerd lore. LOL

[@josefdawson5284]

"the man who already has the entire 7 season dvd box set of star trek the next generation can be tough to buy gifts for" LOL

[@dalemsilas8425]

😂😂😂😂

[@bened22]

I mean ... how about all 7 seasons on Blu Ray? 🤷‍♂️

[@IanM-id8or]

That explains why I never get any gifts. I'm regretting getting the entire 7 season boxed set of TNG now

[@bodyrumuae2914]

Thanks for posting the joke, the rest of us couldn't watch the video.

[@orionred2489]

I heard they are re releasing it on VHS.... seriously. The idea is to be able to watch it as close as possible to the original.

[@IncoGnito-ji5du]

"Impossible" is a term inconsistant with the basic human drive.

[@sszorin]

Why don't we make everybody a millionaire so that nobody has to work ?

[@Alkemisti]

The best FTL I have seen is in _Space Battleship Yamato_ (2012-). The ship creates a surface around it, and dives like a submarine into an ocean-like hyperspace.

[@ghost7524]

What makes it "best" , in your opinion vs other FTL examples?

[@Alkemisti]

@@ghost7524 It looks cool. 😁

[@ghost7524]

@@Alkemisti Oh, ok 😄

[@champisthebunny6003]

My favorite drive, is the Holtzman drive from Dune. Dune's starships, the Heighliners, 'fold' space and cross distances between the stars instantly. But, these huge ships, a are transports. Huge cargo ships that move in a loop along pre-ordered routes, moving people and goods around the galaxy in a manner not dissimilar to a city bus line. They do not even posses maneuver engines and cannot move in normal space under their own power. Dune's starships do not resemble the free-wheeling ships of Star Wars or Star Trek at all. My 2nd choice, would be, the Alderson Drive from the shared universe of Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. Ships can cross space in a instant, but, once they arrive at a star, have to use entirely conventional propulsion systems to move about. The Alderson drive is constrained and can only move between stars that have 'Alderson point tram-lines' linking them. Ships in that shared universe move around normal space, using fusion propulsion.

[@darksidegryphon5393]

Let's also differenciate the impossible from the impractical. Vacuum trains, for instance are possible, but too impractical to consider.

[@peter4499]

Starship is the only real starship and gets 10 seconds of satire? LOL!

[@DamienWalter]

"real starship" lol

[@peter4499]

@@DamienWalter lol

[@ajiththomas2465]

Credit to Dune and the Highliners in Dune for giving one of the best in-universe explanations for space travel and tech through the in-universe Holtzman Effect, which helped connected and ground a lot of the futuristic space tech Dune featured together in such a comprehensive way that it felt more believable than other sci fi works. Dune also does a much better job of showing how these futuristic tech innovations profoundly changed how the world worked in the worldbuilding. The Holtzman Effrct of the repellance of subatomic particles provided different but connected effects depending on which dimension it was used in. 1 Dimensional Use = FTL Communication 2 Dimensional Use = Shields 3 Dimensional Use = Anti-gravity, allowing flight and the use of Glowglobes 4 Dimensional Use = FTL Travel via Folding Space Different sci fi future technologies, all united and connected under one sci fi concept that makes sense and how that concept profoundly changed the world.

[@rebeccaschade3987]

And yet, in the Dune universe FTL travel existed before the invention of the Holtzman Effect. Space Folding only became safe to use after the discovery of Arrakis and the spice. So it's not like the entire concept of FTL travel in Dune is without a fair bit of hand waving.

[@zanderzephyrlistens]

​@@rebeccaschade3987hm

[@rogerphelps9939]

Look. This is just hokum dreamed up by the author and has nothing to do with reality.

[@Zoroasterisk]

@@rogerphelps9939 Why did you feel the need to point that out? Who are you arguing with?

[@JohnFlower-NZ]

@@IblameBlame I've only read some of the books. Am I right in thinking that there was FTL prior to Arrakis. That humanity used computers to do the calculations and that the spice only became important after humanity and the computers had a war and humanity decided to ban computers after their victory?

[@lissythearchitect]

My understanding is that Serenity is a spaceship, not a starship - it stays in a single solar system.

[@thecianinator]

Not at all, they jump to warp like every episode

[@garbagefreak]

@@thecianinator No, "full burn" in Firefly is not FTL. The whole show takes place within a single multi-star system.

[@charlesspringer4709]

@@garbagefreak I thought they were attacked by pirates spotted a couple light years away, etc.

[@MortyrSC2]

@@garbagefreak There is no such thing as multi-star systems. Only single and binary star systems can exist. You add any more stars than that and it can't be stable and inevitably ejects some of the bodies from the system. Not to mention that orbits of smaller bodies like planets would be completely chaotic and not elliptical.

[@TerrorTrooperM]

@@MortyrSC2alpha centauri has 3 stars

[@rickcullarn1347]

Darth Vader "I find your lack of faith disturbing".

[@DamienWalter]

Physics doesn't need you to have faith in it.

[@UmVtCg]

That's what they would have said 150 years ago about smart phones, TV's, Jumbo Jets and space shuttles.

[@DamienWalter]

"they" not scientists

[@Greywolf905]

@@DamienWalter no, scientists would have said it to. and there are a lot of scientists who disagree with you here. yours is not the consensus but rather a collection of your favorite conclusions which are contested credibly by other scientists

[@30AndHatingIt]

From the video itself, to the responses he’s left in the comments… the uploader is an egotistical prick. Don’t waste your time.

[@tothemaxgaming8240]

@@DamienWalter”everything is science fiction until someone makes it science fact” We chose to go to the moon not because it is easy but because it was hard

[@DamienWalter]

@@tothemaxgaming8240 We went to the moon because the US needed to beat the US in ballistic missile design. Believing in marketing hype is always a mistake.

[@darkguardian1314]

Never say never. SpaceX Starship isn't a real starship but using it as a single use booster brings a lot to the table. Like the early attempts to run computers using steam and mechanical gears, we just lack a key piece of knowledge to make it work. We've done this countless times in the past with heavier than air craft, going faster than 60 mph that back then was thought to be deadly to humans. Humans don't know everything. We don't know what we don't know. We have to try...

[@pohjanakka4992]

There is already the idea of Alcubierre Drive. And Krasnikov tubes. And there seem to be a few other hypothetical musings for some sort of warp drives. Now, with the rules used they would be impossible right now, needing what doesn't exist or would be needed in such huge quantities that it is impossible... but perhaps the main thing here is that those ideas actually don't seem to break what is now known of the laws of physics. So... who knows. Give physicists a few more decades, or centuries, to play with those ideas, while learning more and more of what our universe really is like. Frankly, do we really assume we know everything now - or is it more likely we still are where physics was in the late 19th century, thinking that they knew almost everything and needed just to fix a few little things in order to know it all, except then new scientists figured out that was had been known was just a part of the whole. And now, there still are a few small things, just some small refinements, until we should know everything. Right? No telling what the next generations of physicists might come up with. And yes, since we already have a few ideas for warp drives that don't seem to break what we now know of the laws of physics, perhaps warp drives will actually turn out to be possible once we learn more.

[@jennyanydots2389]

@@pohjanakka4992 All that stuff is BS man. It's just pandering to the laymen for attention. Gullible rubes love to live in the fantasy, just tell them what they need to hear and they will pay attention with devotion... make them feel like existence is a little less mundane, it's all they really want.

[@michaelbarbarich3965]

Yeah, Starship is a huge piece of shit tho

[@colinmontgomery1956]

​@@michaelbarbarich3965, why?

[@xetear]

​@@michaelbarbarich3965 Why? Because of a couple of failed tests? Is this your conclusion or are you regurgitating what some KZbinr told you to believe. Flight tests are normal. Failure is part of the normal cycle of creating something new. If we didn't fail when creating something new, how would we learn of potential problems before they become disasters. Stop believing things just because someone else said it. Stop being a drone, do research, and actually observe the universe around you.

[@onlyme972]

Experts once declared that man could never fly.

[@IanM-id8or]

Please, feel free to explain how, given the nature of General Relativity, it could be possible to exceed the speed of light.

[@obsidianjane4413]

@@IanM-id8or Please, feel free to explain how, given the knowledge available to DaVinci, it could be possible to build a practical aircraft from the sketches of his concept of aerodynamics.

[@Nutzername36]

@@obsidianjane4413 He knew birds exist, so he knew that the act of flying was possible in participial...

[@obsidianjane4413]

@@Nutzername36 But he had no way of creating it because of the host of technologies that didn't exist yet. Likewise, we know that a relativistic "warp drive" is possible in principle. But have no more clue about how to build one than he knew how to build even the Wright Flyer, much less a jet engine.

[@Nutzername36]

@@obsidianjane4413 "we know that a relativistic "warp drive" is possible in principle" -> lets say "mathematically possible". Like concepts of higher dimensional spaces, but with no attachment to what is possible in reality.

[@Graeme_Lastname]

Tis really best not to forget that not that long ago some were dissing steam trains because if they were to exceed 30mph all the air would be drawn out of the carriage and the passengers would all suffocate. Not long ago at all. 🤔🖖

[@DamienWalter]

Those people were not physicists.

[@Graeme_Lastname]

@@DamienWalter You're probably correct but they were educated to the current level of understanding. I think physicists came along a bit later. I'm sure there were many arguments. But, we have a long way to go before we know everything. I'm just a bit sad I'm gunna miss that. 😭 🤣👍🇦🇺

[@hideousruin]

​@@Graeme_LastnameI don't think we will discover that everything we are fairly sure about as far as physics and energy and the speed of light will all turn out to have been wrong. I don't think that will change no matter how long humans manage to avoid the extinction we are working so very hard to bring about.

[@Graeme_Lastname]

@@hideousruin I agree 100% but I've learnt, over the years, that things seldom conform to preconceived ideas. B well m8. 😃

[@Azzinoth224]

@@Graeme_Lastname No, there were definitively physicists and mathematicians around when steam engine were invented. And no, the people who claimed you would suffocate because of the speed were certainly not educated enough in physics, else they wouldn't have made the claim. Sorry, but to me your argument is just a fallacy.

[@steve112285]

Without exotic physics, it's still possible to reach other stars in a reasonable time using stellasers and light sails.

[@obsidianjane4413]

Aerodynamics was once considered "exotic physics"...

[@NoidoDev]

Correct. And the probes going far distances might just be like a little nano factories, restarting civilization, at some point recreating humans from DNA data, which will be raised by robots.

[@nettewilson5926]

As long as you don’t have to support biological organisms like hunans

[@jamessmyth3952]

It’s going to be a very interesting time from the 2150’s onward with people watching old episodes of Star Trek and being like… Omg they actually thought this is where’d we be by now?

[@johnferguson4869]

Something I liked about the 2000s Battlestar Galactica was their FTL drives, which were hand-waved a bit a first, but later on became huge hulking lo-tech equipment with massive hydraulic rams and wheels that literally had to spin up. It was a great way to show FTL as something bulky & hard to maintain, but also a nice contrast from what people’s idea of Sci-Fi space drives might look like

[@KatharineOsborne]

I've only read Rama, not the sequels, and I got the impression that the 'passengers' were less passengers and more part of what maintained the ship (so more like a Von Neumann probe than a starship). I could be splitting hairs here.

[@OceanMachine_]

There's more to it in the sequels

[@lukemcniven4131]

the rama had robotic/cybernetic maintenance population, thats true. Its purpose is elaborated on in the sequels and they are quite worth reading. The first novel feels like a mere introduction. Part 2 was very good, more interesting to me. Later parts get a bit wild but it never truely loses the plot. Read on man, its a great series.

[@Torus2112]

A pet favourite family of starships for me is the Covenant from Halo, especially the cruiser Truth and Reconciliation (love the names) which you get to fight through in the first game. The bulbous curves and color scheme of metallic purple, pink, indigo, and teal green isn't what you think of when you imagine menacing implacably aggressive aliens but there it is. The aesthetic is unique and to me pretty pleasing to the eye, and is a good contrast to the stark angular grey of the human military's ships.

[@loganwolfram4216]

It's not that starships are impossible, it's just that the fantastical starships found in pulp sci fi are probably impossible. Though of course we don't actually know. Interstellar colonization will be time-consuming, dangerous, and tremendously expensive. Just as with intercontinental colonization here on earth, only those with great conviction will attempt it, and only a fraction of them will accomplish it, but in time nearly every human will be descended from them. There are only so many resources in our solar system, eventually we must venture outside it, no matter how difficult.

[@ncjay08]

"If man were meant to fly, he would have been born with wings."

[@DamienWalter]

E = MC2

[@sativagirl1885]

>> "If man were meant to fly, God would have made party drugs.

[@Dancerlayla-z6g]

If man were meant to skate he wouldve been born with wheels.

[@Dancerlayla-z6g]

@@sativagirl1885 thank you, god

[@stefanschleps8758]

@@DamienWalter Nothing you see means anything. You have given everything you see all the meaning it has for you! I am not a body I am free.

[@Ginfidel]

The naysayer has access to all information that is accessible at the time. "Nay," says the naysayer. "It will never happen." The wellwisher also has access to all information that is accessible at the time. "Good luck," says the wellwisher. "Figure it out, if you can." Don't be the naysayer. Be the wellwisher.

[@DamienWalter]

"Good luck riding your unicorn. Figure it out!"

[@Ginfidel]

@@DamienWalter Reductio ad absurdum, ad nauseam, et cetera

[@maxkho00]

@@Ginfidel Expecto patronum! I win

[@ANTIStraussian]

There are certain speeds we can't go because the human body can't handle the g force. So scifi makes up inertial dampners. Moving at any serious speed a speck of dust can destroy your ship, so scifi makes up shields and deflectors. Same with the radiation. The sad truth is no one is going to fly to the nearest star. We will be LUCKY if our grand kids see a rover on Titan and a creature swims up to the lens and licks the camera.

[@AndreiAndrei-pg8eg]

Cant believe you left out one of the most overpowered badass starships to be seen on screen, the daedalus class from stargate sg1.

[@DemonixGamer]

"DaVinci, we'll never fly, so stop making those drawings!" This video is in that category: peak arrogance.

[@eCoLL77]

“640K ought to be enough for anybody.” ;-)

[@44excalibur]

And yet, for every video like this one, there's a new news report that says, "Warp drives may someday be possible, new study suggests."

[@DamienWalter]

"news reports" 🤣😂

[@44excalibur]

@@DamienWalter Yep, earlier today. I Googled it after watching your video. Guys like you do tend to fall by the wayside.

[@hoverleash1117]

Ever heard the term "click bait?"

[@bambusbjorn3508]

@@DamienWalter actually NASA reports ... with good reason

[@MT-xu7dh]

It’s not that starships aren’t possible, it’s that they are not typically depicted realistically in scifi. Real starships would travel at sublight speeds and take decades to travel between nearby systems. Very advanced designs might travel so fast that they experience significant time dilation. This is just one of so many misconceptions that popular sci-fi creates.

[@ANTIStraussian]

Sci fi shields? How does one make a deflector dish? 😂

[@MT-xu7dh]

@@ANTIStraussian a couple of ways. One method is to create a stream of dust particles in front of you to stop rocks and use a magnet to deflect ions. If you are traveling at ultrarelativistic speeds the all you need is a magnet. It will eventually a capture a feild of plasma which will vaporize any particle it hits. For slower ships a big metal plate would work.

[@ANTIStraussian]

@@MT-xu7dh the magent and stream of dust isn't a real technology that exists. These rocks traveling as fast as they are would slice through the metal plate like butter.

[@MT-xu7dh]

@@ANTIStraussian these are all real technologies and no they wouldnt. They would slowly erode the plate via ablation.

[@ANTIStraussian]

@@MT-xu7dh they aren't real technologies. You should research how fast these micro asteroids travel vs how fast the ship is flying.

[@tysonas1]

The Galactica is the closest to an actual interstellar ship; long and slender. Large enough for all the resources needed for a crew. The ship must be self sufficient, growing foods, producing oxygen and water; we have this technology now. Man is fast approaching the materials needed for construction and sub light engines capable of 1/25 to eventually 1/5 sublight. The primary technology lacking is long range sensors reaching out tens of millions of miles; this is essential for a starship traveling a million plus KPH.

[@dukeon]

Epic essay. I’m new to your channel and a massive Sci-Fi fan, especially the hard variety. I’m also a physicist. I love your content, immediate subscriber here! 🚀

[@whssy]

No mention of Red Dwarf. Scandalous.

[@goodoldbubba6620]

No mention of Blake or Avon either. Also scandalous.

[@Trouble1354]

“When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.” - Arthur C Clarke This goes double for science fiction writers.

[@DamienWalter]

In a shocking development, quotes from dead scifi writers do not change physics.

[@fandomguy8025]

​@@DamienWalter Him being dead doesn't change anything about wether or not he's right. This is silly! The point is to argue with, well, the POINT, not the man. Fact of the matter is, we do not have a theory of quantum gravity, therefore, we cannot say with absolute certainty wether or not the physical limits as we understand them today truly hold up in all situations! In fact, there's a Naval aerospace engineer who claims he's found a way in special relativity to achieve it with electricity & non-equillibrium thermodynamics, & the quantum vacuum which the Navy is incredibly interested in & defends, search "UFO patents" (Modern interest in certain 'UAPs' that seem to imply new physics with hypersonic non-inertial maneuvers is a different topic) Meanwhile, physicists such as Sabine Hossenfelder point out that special relativity is not real, because it describes a universe free of matter, which is not the real universe. When you include matter you can define a "co-moving" frame that removes the causal issues with FTL travel commonly cited & makes FTL travel/communication more like sci-fi. Einstein himself dreamed of one day truly unifying his theory with matter, the "base wood" of matter to the "marble" of the geometry but he died before he could figure it out & we're still working on it. Some 5D theories (Induced matter/Space-Time-Matter theory which predicts quantum effects in relativity), similar to the engineer Salvatore Pais, suggests metric engineering is possible without negative energy & thus, again, FTL travel as well as inertial mass reduction using powerful EM fields. (Metric engineering would also mean artificial gravity without rotation & all that Star Wars-Trek stuff. But with glowing craft usually.)

[@zackbarkley7593]

True, but it usually plays out radically different from the way we imagine it. For example, we could technically make gold using particle accelerators and nuclear chemistry, and realize the alchemist dream, but it is not only impractical, but it seems unimportant when you consider all the more interesting things we have been able to do with chemistry...even if initially motivated by gold production. Because distant space travel is similarly extreme, I think something similar could play out. One possible scenario is that our whole concept of space and travel may become so radically different, that our previous notions of what space travel even means may seem naiive. For example, if quantum holography is correct, the world is not really three dimensional but two dimensionsl. "Travel" then to some "distant" location may really be just altering your reality and actually going to some kind of inner space that is causally disconnected and radically alien to the common one. The degree of disconnection might even be directly proportional to what we used to call distance and even define it ..and possibly so radically different it might drive you to madness. Astronaughts may be then seen as the ultimate in Grey Gardens shut ins...rather than intrepid explorers. If qubism and quantum solipsism are true, then it might be just as real and accurate to what we now call simulation in a quantum computer to explore such other realities and "distant" places from where we are in a safer place. Imagine we have a quantum computer that can accurately simulate to negligible error communicating with an alien in the Andromeda galaxy. What would be the difference from traveling there or the meaning?

[@caffeinated4671]

You forgot the often missed exception: When the lay people really want something to be true, often emotionally so, and the elderly, distinguished Scientist says 'Yea physically that's not possible', then the scientist in question is often usually right.

[@bretthess6376]

Don't bet on it. If it can be done, we'll do it. And if it can't be done, we'll still do it.

[@rogerphelps9939]

Absolutely wrong.

[@bretthess6376]

@@rogerphelps9939 Prove it.

[@valiile]

@@rogerphelps9939 Absolutely! But wrong?!?

[@CarlosAM1]

A starship does not need to go FTL to be a starship where did that conclusion come from? Even with an orion drive, NSWR or fusion drives it's possible to reach 10% lightspeed. With things like laser sails and antimatter we are talking speeds over 50% lightspeed, travel time being even shorter for anyone onboard due to time dilation.

[@izrador2264]

Somehow I think this video won't age well.

[@MrDibara]

Agreed, but I think it will take a century or two before we reach there. The advancement of space travel technology has slowed down HARD over the last decades, despite what companies like SpaceX would have us believe.

[@mahatmarandy5977]

@@MrDibarabeen 51 years since we’ve ventured out of LEO, and I’m not convinced we’re gonna do it again in my lifetime. We’ve been saying “we’re only 30 years away from Mars” for my entire 57 years, and when I die, I’m sure it’ll still be “30 years away.” (You know, added to which, I’ve never been very interested in Mars. I’m much more into O’neil habitats)

[@sszorin]

Starships will NEVER exist. Also - because there will be no inter-generational space travel. Any attempt at it will be doomed - this can be proven simply by careful reasoning. Since the idea of it is unreasonable then there will be no attempts to achieve such a voyage.

[@Snagabott]

You have three ways to reconcile this: 1) FTL is fundamentally impossible and cannot ever happen. 2) Closed timelike loops (causality breaks) can exist with some way of avoiding contradictions. 3) There is a preferred universal frame of reference (for instance, but not necessarily, one comoving with the CMB). The most conservative one is to assume 1, but we haven't conclusively ruled out the others.

[@Dockultra]

Personally, one of my favorite starships is the ominous Event Horizon from the cult classic movie of the same name. It started out as an experimental starship that would test FTL but it vanished for 7 years and started to haunt the crew that was sent to investigate its mysterious reappearance.

[@DeadPixel1105]

Thank you, I was hoping to see someone mention Event Horizon. And the USG Ishimura from Dead Space too.

[@Dockultra]

@@DeadPixel1105 It was honestly hard for me not to mention it because I really like Event Horizon and I think it's a very underappreciated movie. I don't know anything about the USG Ishimura from Dead Space though, I haven't played Dead Space but I want to play it some day since I've heard very good things about it.

[@DeadPixel1105]

@@Dockultra I hope you get around to Dead Space someday. It's amazing. In fact, Event Horizon was one of the primary inspirations for Dead Space. Combine Event Horizon with Lovecraftian cosmic-horror and you get Dead Space. You'd love it. Anyways, have a great day!

[@daemonthorn5888]

7:59 Kenneth Arnold did not report seeing a "saucer shaped object". The entire idea of saucer shaped craft was is the result of misrepresentation by the media. So, the fact that all kinds of people started claiming to see "flying saucers" after Kenneth Arnold's initial claim, in my opinion, is proof that they are lying and making up stories. When Kenneth Arnold made his claim he said that he saw several objects flying on formation, and that they "moved like saucers skipping on water". He did not say they were saucer shaped. If you're part of the younger crowd, or grew up in the city, you may not know what "skipping on water" means. It is referring to a very common thing that kids growing up in rural area did when we were kids. We'd gather up a handful of, somewhat flat stones, and we'd throw them from the hip so that they would skip across the surface of the water. We'd try to out-do each others throw by trying to skip our rock the furthest. So, he was referring to their movement. He was not saying that they were actually shaped like saucers. The entire, saucer shaped craft, thing is the result of poor reading comprehension. So all the reports that came afterward are obviously fake, when the people making their reports are molding their reported sightings on the original sighting, which was misrepresented in the newspaper. Kenneth Arnold actually described the objects as being similar to the Horton Flying Wing.

[@Blues.Fusion]

The star trek reality never got outside our own galaxy. Thats like going on a journey around the block that your house is on.

[@robertsouth6971]

Near light speed starships will certainly exist.

[@durshurrikun150]

Err, no.

[@williamcase426]

That sucks

[@andymouse]

Dumbest comment prize right here.

[@CarlosAM1]

​@@andymouse Why? It's perfectly possible according to physics, the catch is simply getting all the energy needed.

[@jimmyboy131]

And even if they existed they're just way too slow. Light itself is way waaaay too slow to be able to travel anywhere, assuming the distances between stars we're told are true. And I don't believe anything official anymore.

[@bujinkanatori]

title should be "sharships will likely neer exist"

[@bened22]

KZbin titles are not the place for subtleties. Also when something is so unlikely, do we really have to include the possibility of it still happening? Do I really have to say: "Three green clown girls with yellow noses and green hair will LIKELY never dance on your grave to an Elvis song covered by Metallica?" It won't happen but yeah, it COULD happen. What I just said about the clown girls is more likely than space ships, but it's unlikely enough.

[@bujinkanatori]

@@bened22 Clickbaiting is necessary and annoying.

[@longiusaescius2537]

@@bujinkanatori real

[@philipmetts8831]

100 billion stars in a galaxy. He said million.

[@ronjon7942]

Does it matter? At those numbers?

[@rozzgrey801]

@@ronjon7942 Yes it matters.

[@ANTIStraussian]

​@@rozzgrey801it seems like a typo mistake in the script.

[@rozzgrey801]

@@ANTIStraussian A professional or at least someone who cared about the quality of their content would have fixed it.

[@minorityofthought1306]

The Enterprise will always be my first and only love. What a beauty. :)

[@stevenscott2136]

I assume you mean the refit version from the early movies. Much prettier than the TOS or any of the later ones.

[@Pirate85getready]

@@stevenscott2136 Constitution Refit is the most cool looking Enterprise

[@1977Yakko]

The best starships are the quirky ones with personality which sometimes require a little TLC to keep going. The ones that are more than just a ship but a home.

[@EyMannMachHin]

What I always wonder why one F/SF series is always forgotten. But I guess it is because it never got much recognition outside of Germany. That is "Perry Rhodan", a classic space opera centered around the titular character as the "Heir of the Universe". It started in 1961, which is well before "Doctor Who" and "Star Trek" with the publication of weekly novellas that is unbroken (unlike Doctor Who) til today, counting 3270 issues (as of this posting) in the main series. It starts out with humanities dream of reaching the moon in a chemical rocket ship and finding an alien spaceship there marooned, because the advanced civilisation that build it is also on the decline and dependent on their technology and thus not able to repair their ship. Terran ships are build after that example. They are just boring sphericals with the charme of the Death Star. From there on humanity is trying to find their way and place in the galaxy and the rest of the universe. As a way to keep the series going for so long the main characters get a finite amount of devices called "cell activators" early on in the series. These devices prevent cell degeneration, but are still prone to dying from accidents. Anyway around each cycle (about 50 to 100 issues) the technical advancements picked up during the cycle are reaching maturity and result in a new flagship that will be the template for the rest of the fleet from there on. Anyway I digress. I just have it on my bucket list to catch up to the current events starting at the begining. And there actually exists one (very bad!) movie from 1967 Mission Stardust. I guess these comic book like serialisation of novellas as pulp-fiction never really caught on outside Germany. In Germany they exist for a lot of genres: Hospital series, Romance, Horror and F/SF and electronic publication keeps them alive more than ever.

[@minorityofthought1306]

I read the first thirty-ish books. My dad had a box full of old sci-fi novels and Hardy Boys. If I recall correctly in the PR universe there were mutations as well like the X-Men. The one guy who could teleport I remember vividly.

[@Raz.C]

"Starships will never exist..." You say that like a man who knows EVERYTHING.

[@komradewirelesscaller6716]

Starship's are definitely the "stuff hat dreams are made of!"

[@heblanchard]

Purely as a footnote: E. E. Doc Smith was most certainly, if not the first, certainly foundational in the concept of starships and interstellar travel/civilizations. (Although he used the term spaceship.) Reading his work (if you can stand it) you get the feeling you’re reading draft outlines of Star Trek, Star Wars, and more.

[@Triaxx2]

Spaceship/Starship is a lot like boat/ship. Ships are boats, but not all boats are ships. Same that all Starships are spaceships, but not all spaceships are starships.

[@Tannhauser62]

Ah, I missed this comment and just posted something similar. Agree too that he's tough to read (though I loved him as a pre-teen).

[@JohnFlower-NZ]

@@Tannhauser62 I also enjoyed him thoroughly as a teenager. I certainly see how later episodic space based tv shows could be derived iterations on his stories. I'm curious about how far back the idea of space travel goes. I'm aware that people thousands of years ago had a concept of places that weren't Earth and that we might be able to travel to them.

[@jhmcd2]

I believe that the first technical starship in mass media was the Enterprise. Before hand most ships were small, and could only hold a few people or were glorified rockets such as Buck Rodgers's ship. But the more "modern" definition, a ship being able to carry dozens if not hundreds on voyages lasting years, that was the original Constitution Class Starship Enterprise. It was the largest ship in scifi at the time. Now, that being said, FTL is possible. The problem is energy, we just can't produce the energy required. Like people used to claim that ships the size of the Titanic was impossible, now we have ships so big they could hold the Titanic with room to spare crashing into bridges. Even just yesterday (from when I am writing this) they figured out way to make warp drive work without needing negative energy. The problem is, we have no use for the technology now. No purpose. So we aren't really trying to do anything about it.

[@DamienWalter]

Maybe read your Einstein in more depth.

[@robvangessel3766]

I think the Forbidden Planet soundtrack was done with electronic equipment, but not the theramin.

[@theagg]

Yep, what a mistake for him to make re those well known 'Electronic Tonalities' the Barrons created.

[@charlesyoung7436]

The couple who came up with the Forbidden Planet electronic score were not able to be nominated for an Academy Award because they were not union musicians.

[@fuzzywzhe]

A theramin is electronic equipment. Not to argue this point too much, I have forgotten the score to Forbidden Planet, and honestly, I didn't even like the film.

[@swiftmatic]

For size and power, I'd take an Imperial Guard Flotilla Battle Planetoid from David Weber's "Armageddon Inheritance."

[@danieltempas6062]

Now your talking!

[@Lt_Rik]

Elon's Starship was never intended to go to "the stars" it's the 1st attempt to reach something like Mars at a reasonable price point. It's obviously an early WIP, but look at the 1st attempts on planes, they were just silly compared to modern planes a few decades later. Yes, reaching other stars seems incredibly difficult from our current perspective, but who knows what might be possible in 100, 500 or 1000 years from now. Don't let your linear thinking get in the way of what's possible.

[@fenwickc2274]

The Sheer Hubris of Damien Walter

[@DamienWalter]

"I want to believe"

[@Fedaygin]

@@DamienWalter Then change the title ^^ 🫂

[@DamienWalter]

​@@Fedaygin"I want to believe"

[@nilo70]

Many things are impossible. Kirk’s communicator that allowed him to talk to his ship or indeed communicate to an entire planet is .. wait that’s a flip phone. OK how about transparent Aluminum that’s impossible.. oh that’s actually a real thing nowadays. Then how about a sensor array that can scan distant planets in other galaxies and suns and… oh that’s a real fact too…. I’m going to say that once many things were considered impossible. Our knowledge of physics ,biology and quantum mechanics are really in their infancy if you think about it. A.I. may discover things unknown to me and you now. A good scientist will always leave wiggle room for the unknown.

[@nbsmith100]

to be honest, that song has been sung about many things... and have fallen flat before.

[@visvivalaw]

""The whole procedure [of shooting rockets into space]...presents difficulties of so fundamental a nature, that we are forced to dismiss the notion as essentially impracticable, in spite of the author's insistent appeal to put aside prejudice and to recollect the supposed impossibility of heavier-than-air flight before it was actually accomplished" -- Richard van der Riet Woolley, Astronomer Royal, 1936. "Starships will never exist. Except in dreams." -- Damien Walter, 2024.

[@DamienWalter]

Crackpots doubted rocketry, physicists believed it. Physicists doubt interstellar travel, crackpots believe in it.

[@ronjon7942]

@@DamienWalterBoom! Brilliant. I was going to comment that ‘an incorrect 1936 prediction means obviously FTL is possible,’ but I’m going with yours.

[@CastFromHitPoints]

@@DamienWalter Appeal to authority is a logical fallacy. "That one body may act upon another at a distance through a vacuum without the mediation of anything else, is to me so great an absurdity that, I believe, no man who has a competent faculty of thinking could ever fall into it." - Isaac Newton Then Einstein found that spacetime curves around mass, meaning Newton's entire idea of action at a distance was erroneous. His math then led to the Schwarzchild Metric, which was viewed as erroneous math due to involving 2 singularity points. The understanding of the time was Heisenburg's Uncertainty Principle resulted in the electrons creating outward pressure, thus limiting the amount a star can be compressed to a white dwarf. Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar was publicly blasted by Sir Arthur Eddington for finding this wrong, saying "There should be a law of Nature that prevents stars from behaving in this absurd way." Of course, we now know that is wrong, thanks to the ideas of several smart individuals building off each other's math. General relativity is the best model we have for gravity. Quantum mechanics is the best model we have for the other 3 fundamental forces. Physicists have been trying for decades to reconcile the 2 models as they have fundamental mathematical incompatibilities. You say physicists doubt interstellar travel while crackpots believe in it. Well, the mainstream view of physicists for decades doubted the existence of black holes too, even just going "well, we don't know HOW it happens, but something prevents singularities." Physicists today can't even create an accurate model of how the universe works without something breaking. We simply don't know enough. Now, if my belief that future discoveries will make generation ships possible makes me a crackpot, well, that label has been slapped on so many visionaries by so many dogmatic individuals who were eventually proven wrong, that I find myself in great company. Maybe you are right, but blanket statements in science rarely age well.

[@DamienWalter]

​@@CastFromHitPointsNo, the appeal to the authority of physicists about physics is perfectly valid. You don't understand basic logic, let alone rhetoric.

[@galenc1606]

​@@DamienWalter I hate to break it to you, but plenty of physicists not only think its possible to invent the overly abstracted "drives" that would be used to meet your ridiculously over specific definition of "starships" you keep whining about in your condescending rants, but they're trying to work on making them a reality. There's entire research teams dedicated to warping space, and they've had measurable (albeit functionally useless and poorly understood) results, at least since 2015. As a bonus, we've recently discovered quantum teleportation, which may one day make "drives" a completely obsolete concept. You're not appealing to the authority of physicists, you're appealing to the monolith of science that you've built in your head for use as a rhetorical club that you can beat anyone with a reasonable argument over the head with. That's why you constantly have nothing more to say than a series of dismissive lines about how your logic is valid and therefore no one else's is, my favorite "you're just speculating," and the constant barrage of ad hominem attacks you unleash on everyone who doesn't agree with you. You're a condescending know-it-all, and rest assured I'm only using such polite terms because of youtube's overzealous censors.

[@jotarokujo156]

Fun fact: JWST just discovered primordial galaxies that are WAAAYYY older & bigger and should not have existed if the big bang theory is to go by

[@Spacefrisian]

I guess the best we can hope for are the likes of the Expanse or the often overlooked Gundam series. Both Sci fi shows dont have starships to begin with, just space worthy ships (Gundam actually shows it better than the Expanse).

[@wynnschaible]

What's really behind our continuing fascination with the Starship (for that matter, you could have brought Jefferson Airplane into the discussion) is the attitude expressed in the iconic "Beam me up, Scotty, there's no intelligent life down here."

[@SrenHolm-k3o]

Mhm. just like "humans will never fly, gameboys will never have color screens, only 5 computers will be needed, the internet is a fad" Some day this videotitle will have aged just as poorly.

[@DamienWalter]

If you're expecting the laws of physics to anytime soon, I got news for ya

[@trex2621]

​@@DamienWalter There are no changes to laws of physics needed. With current population and current technology (plus foreseeable dedicated development) and dedication, we could send out colonization ship (or fleet) with tens to hundreds of thousands of colonists in few centuries. It will crawl, but will get to the destination. With some likely (within current understanding of laws of physics) developments (mass production of graphene, D+D fusion etc.) it could happen a lot sooner and faster. Even faster than light travel is still possible in theory. Theory of special relativity just prevents reaching and crossing the barrier. But... we don't know, how theory of quantum gravity will look like, but we know, that it will wreak havoc in old theories.

[@NightFlash24]

"There will never be a ship heavier than water" You didn't watch The Expanse, didn't you...two words: exploitable resources

[@ANTIStraussian]

The expanse doesn't have ships that fly to other solar systems faster than light.

[@mirarstudios]

The technology of now was unimaginable 400 years ago.

[@DamienWalter]

But none of it breaks the laws of physics.

[@mirarstudios]

​@@DamienWalterblack holes and neutron stars don't break the laws of physics but they were imputed first within the laws of physics. This process is not complete, dark matter and strange matter are hypotheticals that are implied within the laws of physics but as yet undetected. Our laws of physics are foundational but incomplete and it may be via the exploitation of an ever deeper understanding of physics that hitherto unimaginable or unlikely things could come about.

[@durshurrikun150]

@@mirarstudios You know that this will not change the fact that c is an absolute and a constant, right?

[@mirarstudios]

​@@durshurrikun150I am not talking about faster than light or even using propulsion to go very very fast. What I am saying is that our understanding of physics is not complete therefore one can not reasonably say something is 'impossible', this strikes me as hubristic and limited in view. So you go tell yourself starships are impossible and I will go continuing to believe that progress in forms we cannot imagine may be Infront of humanity hundreds or thousands of years from now as our physics understanding continues to evolve.

[@durshurrikun150]

@@mirarstudios "herefore one can not reasonably say something is 'impossible" Errr, you can. Faster than light travel is impossible, since c is a fundamental constant of the universe. You can also claim with certainty that you can't cool anything to 0 K. That also expands to chemistry (which is, in the end, an expansion of physics): for example, you can claim that you can't reduce CO2 to methanol without coupling the process to a thermodynamically favourable process. You can claim that the bisulphate ion will never act as a base in DMSO for alkanes. "this strikes me as hubristic and limited in view" Only if you are scientifically illiterate. "So you go tell yourself starships are impossible" Physics tells that, general relativity especially. And that's not getting into the practical problems of interstellar travel. I mean, humans can't even reliably go to Mars or Venus. "I will go continuing to believe that progress in forms we cannot imagine may be Infront of humanity " So you confirm that all you have is belief, not scientific knowledge and not any sort of rationality. You made science fiction your object of worship. The understanding of science will evolve, but what has been discovered will remain. And c will always remain a limit.

[@DJ_Force]

Everything loosely considered "technology" came from learning about the atom and the forces of nature. That picture seems pretty complete now, and the rapid scientific advances of the 20th century have run their course. Without new physics there will never be SciFi spaceships, and there is nothing to indicate any new physics will be discovered, at least in a technologically useful way.

[@TheHispanicHombre]

Forbidden Planet is the best Sci-fi movie every!

[@DamienWalter]

I wouldn't go with ever, but its definitely up there

[@shintaro797]

No way! 2001: A Space Odyssey ❤

[@michaels4255]

Forbidden Planet has my vote too!

[@brianvernon7754]

Cyrano de Bergerac wrote of a space ship travel a full 200 years before his countryman Verne would.

[@menguardingtheirownwallets6791]

The Voyager series of spacecraft are now considered 'Starships' as they have entered deep space beyond our solar system.

[@DamienWalter]

75,000 years to Proxima, but going in the wrong direction and can't steer. Not much of a starship.

[@ImVeryOriginal]

@@DamienWalter Also, and I feel this is a crucial distinction, no crew.

[@gregalden1101]

I was in the minority answering Serenity in the last survey. The reason is that lived-in vibe. Each crew member has a unique space - the engineer lives in the engine room, the Consul has a lush elegant cabin, etc.

[@lloydlego6088]

She does not live in the engine room. She just has a hammock in there to take naps, have some tea while talking to the ship. She has a room just like all the “crew”. The rooms that River, Simon, and Shepard Book sleep in are in a different area. Indra sleeps on one of the shuttles that she rents.

[@gregalden1101]

@lloydlego6088 yes, right, just a hammock, thanks. Still furthers my point that living space is fleshed out most in Firefly.

[@valiile]

@@lloydlego6088 Inara... Indra or Indira - different novels...

[@musicman8270]

Sounds like the guy who shut down the patten office because everything had been invented. It's a daunting task to be sure, but so is traveling across the US in five hours.

[@ronjon7942]

Ugh, no kidding. Especially when you have to go back and DRIVE that same distance in 5 days.

[@rikk319]

He didn't shut down the patent office, he was the then-head of the US patent office in Washington DC, and in the late 1800s claimed that nearly everything had been invented, and patent claims would fall off because there wouldn't be much more to invent. He was remarkably short-sighted, but at least get the history right.

[@musicman8270]

@@rikk319 just repeating what I heard...everywhere

[@rogerphelps9939]

@@rikk319 He did not understand svcience, especially physics.

[@Araretoy]

I appreciate the angle you've taken on this. But a "starship" is impractical with our current understanding of physics and ability to construct. Even if we could build a small starship (say something like The Ghost in the Star Wars Universe), shielding it from xrays and basic space debris from punching holes in it is pretty much required. Never exist in this century, but if we don't kill ourselves on this planet first, I think we will develop technologies to take us in smaller starships. Anything huge like a star destroyer would definitely need an engineering knowledge boost of at least 100 fold and materials we do not possess at this time.

[@brianherndon1209]

If we keep the attitude that starship will never happen the chances of having starships will go down but if we think starships will exist the chances go up.

[@DamienWalter]

Physics doesn't care about your attitude

[@zaneshark]

​@@DamienWalter Our understanding of physics continues to improve.

[@grahammukuyu4660]

​@@DamienWaltersturbbon people like you are the only thing holding mankind from achieving it

[@realitypoet]

I think my favorite starships are the lighthuggers from the Revelation Space series. Though they may underestimate the challenges of impacts at near light speed, they at least don’t forget about it; and while interstellar travel is possible in that universe it is hardly commonplace and still requires centuries of time displacement (via hibernation tech) and the people who do it are very either strange or very depressed because of it, which seems about right. Also (mild spoilers for the third book) they do eventually work out how to travel at (though not above) light speed by essentially reducing the mass of the ship to zero, so the entire ship is essentially a photon and the people inside it experience no time passing, which I think is a neat concept for fiction and while still probably not possible in reality it acknowledges the limits of physics enough to make it feel real/possible.

[@Concreteowl]

Not all the Imperial navy are played by Brits and the Star Destroyer isn't named because it destroys stars. It's Destroyer class warship in space. And Tardis came before Enterprise. One is the American living room/office and the other is an English uncle's shed.

[@goaway152]

I don't remember any destroyer class vessels ever carrying fighter wings. Let alone an entire brigade of armored walkers. You might want to go revisit your navel nomenclature

13:00 You can have a standard model within another standard model, isolated by a "bubble of uncertainty" that separates the two spaces. It is the base of the Star Trek Warp engine: the ship is static in its space-time, where time runs at the same speed as in the external space-time, but on the bubble border the two space-time flows between they at great speed. If the ship is not careful, it can cause a worm hole on itself, but as long as it can control the speed and have enough energy to maintain the bubble, it can "cross" the external space-time without fear of colliding with a rock or a planet. Bubble calculations by Alcubierre is a first approach to the problem.

[@ssocar96]

Technically the first one actually is from "A True Story" a late classical play that was a satirical comedy.

[@DamienWalter]

It's just a poor translation.

[@reptomicus]

Never is long enough to prove you wrong and rub your face in it if anyone remembered you when the time came.

[@tureytayno3154]

They used to say that about flying machines and the atomic bomb, so I wouldn't discard it just yet.

[@DamienWalter]

Crackpots doubted flight. Now crackpots do not doubt interstellar travel.

[@rogerphelps9939]

They used to understand a lot less about physics than they do now too.

[@Kyanzes]

There was no saucer shaped object. Unfortunately, Arnold's account of the flying objects behaving as if saucers skipping on water was transliterated as flying saucers. He specifically said half-moon. Since then people try to originate the saucer name from him.

[@DrAnarchy69]

Personally I find it incredibly hubristic to think that current Humanity knows even a significant fraction of how the universe truly works. We know the very, very, VERY basics. If Humans can figure out how gravity truly works, that could easily unlock a whole series of tech breakthroughs possibly including FTL travel

[@xBINARYGODx]

aren't YOU the one exercising hubris right now?

[@invictus2578]

@@xBINARYGODxhow nobody and I mean nobody knows what is going to happen 2-500 years from now honestly this guy is full of shit on the video it’s like the middle age kingdom saying nobody will ever fly or be able to communicate instantly ever

[@invictus2578]

@@xBINARYGODxhow? Nobody and I mean nobody knows what’s going to happen 2-500 years from now this guy is a moron in the video it’s like somebody from a mid evil kingdom saying nobody will ever fly or communicate instantly ever

[@ronjon7942]

@@invictus2578 Do you have another version of your comment?

[@ronjon7942]

@@xBINARYGODxAgreed. This blind, baseless daydreaming gets exhausting. And worrisome.

[@mastergems5145]

Protection and Energy is the two hurdles needed to overcome the barrier of space flight. Once overcome, Space ships and star ships would be a reality.

[@DamienWalter]

Sure, senesence and existence are the only things in the way of immortality. Let's get those licked!

[@mastergems5145]

@@DamienWalter I think we can achieve mines first before yours.

[@DamienWalter]

@@mastergems5145 Only because you don't understand what "protection" means. HINT - it's not just impacts.

[@mastergems5145]

@@DamienWalter You do realize that I said protection so I know what I am talking about. It's up to you to figure out if you know what I am talking about.

[@fiktivhistoriker345]

Thank you for this inspiring video. I would like to add a few things if you don't mind. Going back in history the first "spaceship" was a real ship, driven to the moon by a storm. The story, called "True Stories" was written by Lukian of Samosata in the 2nd century. In german, a "starship" is nowadays called "Raumschiff", wich just mean spaceship. And talking about famous starships, i'd prefer the Enterprise as symbol for human curiosity over a tiny old freighter.

[@obsidianjane4413]

If you found this inspiring, then you didn't understand it.

[@TemperedMedia]

@@obsidianjane4413 I don't think you understand how inspiration works for writers, but that's okay. You have to be just a little crazy to get it.

[@obsidianjane4413]

@@TemperedMedia Yeah, you don't get it either.

[@TemperedMedia]

@@obsidianjane4413 I don't think I've seen someone so smug about being so ignorant in my entire life. Kudos

[@obsidianjane4413]

@@TemperedMedia Ironic projection. You know what ASSuming things makes you look like right?

[@larrybremer4930]

If we can determine there is a habitable planet around Proxima I think we will have the technology for humans to make the journey in a human scale timeframe within the next 200 years, although I would also speculate the trip will take around 30-40 years one way. The people that go will either be there to stay, or it will be a generational round trip journey. It would require an average speed of 0.1c or higher to be practical and useful. Technically we could build such a ship today but it would require a huge percentage of the worlds GDP to build it. What would really be different in 200 years is the the cost of access to low earth orbit will continue to drop making the construction of a huge ship to sustain the crew and make the trip plausible. The only obstacle will be the willingness to do it. Even traveling around 0.1c will be hazardous since even the few specs of dust per km squared will do damage to the hull and even something like a single grain of sand at those speeds could do significant damage to even an armored spaceship.

[@dookdomini6535]

getting to the stars for people in their lifetime is quite easy - just constantly keep accelerating with enough fuel... just getting back to see loved ones in your lifetime is more difficult. everyone talks about time dilation, but tend to ignore length contraction... close to the speed of light distances become relatively short for those travelling - you could get to the edge of the universe within 50 year around 75% speed of light. but when you return home, earth / solar system would be long gone.

[@larrybremer4930]

@@dookdomini6535 The observable universe from Earth is 5 billion light years in any direction. How would that be crossed at .75c in 50 years? By my math you would travel around 37.5 light years at .75c in 50 or hardly anywhere in our Galaxy (100k light years across) which is but a tiny fraction of our Universe..

[@dookdomini6535]

@@larrybremer4930 this is because of length contraction to near zero at the speed of light.. but i was wrong to state 75% more like 99% speed of light. at the speed of light, if you could reach it, you couldn't, distances to the traveler would contract to near zero. 1- v2/c2, where c is the speed of light, and v is velocity. so at 99% speed of light the length contraction to the edge of the universe would be to 0.01% of a stationary observer.. so yes, if you went fast enough you could get to the edge of the universe in your own lifetime.

[@larrybremer4930]

@@dookdomini6535 I see where your going if your using the traveler as the frame of reference for time, however its still incorrect because time dilation is non linear. Traveling at 0.99c is still only going to decrease your time to rest frame time by a 7x (1 day for you is 7 days on Earth). Some of the final numbers before infinity (time stops at c) are 0.999999c where 1 day is nearly 2 years, and 0.99999999999999c where 1 day is just short of 20k years.

[@dookdomini6535]

@@larrybremer4930 agree non-linear but the relationship is sqrt root of squared ratios.. if constantly accelerating from the frame of reference of the traveller (no idea where rofl they get the fuel from) others have done the maths and it's possible to get to 'the edge' of the universe.. the biggest flaw in argument is IF the universe is expanding from the point of view of the earth reference.. eventually over time, IF the universe expands, the distances between galaxies would literally surge daily... however even if the universe expands the other assessments ignore length contraction which is the real reason the traveler could get get long distances in their lifetime, not time dilation as often quoted, a super fast traveller.. at exactly the speed of light (impossible) all distances to anywhere contract to zero.

[@GregoryGrant-ze3bd]

Cool history of the starship in SF but nowhere did he present the argument that it will never exist except in dreams.

[@DamienWalter]

It's all in there friend.

[@GregoryGrant-ze3bd]

@@DamienWalter I did watch the whole video friend. It's not in there, not all of it, nor any of it.

[@DamienWalter]

​@@GregoryGrant-ze3bdWe'll do another version to bring it down to your level one day.

[@JustWasted3HoursHere]

Never? If we asked someone from the 3rd century if humans would ever be able to talk to people thousands of miles away on the other side of the Earth they would also have said it was "impossible".

[@e.corellius4495]

yeah, to me, it sounds like if this guy was in ancient Greece he would have gone up to Democritus and told him his theory of Atoms was all impossible nonsense. took more than 2000 years, but Democritus was proven right, this guy wont be.

[@JustWasted3HoursHere]

@@e.corellius4495 Yep. All it takes is one significant discovery or invention to change the landscape forever, making it possible for previously unheard of concepts to be put into use.